1-5 Translation Notes | HANDPLATES
Polish is a very gendered language. You add specific gendered additions no matter in which person you’re speaking. If you’re talking about someone or something, you specify their pronouns. So this is a bit of a problem with frisk. They’re non binary. They use they/them. In polish we have two ways to describe gender neutrality. They’re both uncommon, because, well, Poland isn’t the most accepting of places. Anyways. The two ways are: Talking about frisk as if they’re two people. This is the more accepted way, since it sounds like old polish, in which you very often used plural pronouns for one person. Sadly, those pronouns can’t really be properly used in the first person, unless the person wants to sound like they have DiD. The second way is less accepted, and sounds foreign because of how little it’s used. But most non binary people, along with myself kind of, prefer that way of speaking. It basically means using the natural pronouns, which is cool, we have that. Sadly, they have an „OM” sound instead of a softer „AM” or „EM” so it stands out in day to day speech. I opted for this way of doing so, since it would be more fun and specifically point out them being non binary. Especially since frisk is a child, and child is one of those few gender neutral words even in polish, so even if someone wanted to be mad, they wouldn't be able to. *which isn’t always the case, mind you, since words in polish are very often gendered like for example, person, is feminine * During hole punching the only thing I’d want to mention is that I forgot one line, at first. The „It’s only five seconds”. I only found the mistake after showing it to a friend of mine and counting the paragraphs ^^””
In polish, it’s not all that common to call anyone ”Doctor” or "Professor" even if that’s who they are/their title. More common is calling them sir/mr or ma’am/miss. This fun little thing stems from back in time, Medival times, i think. Basically, the nobles decided that, yes, they were descendants of some great warriors, so they’re all lords/sirs. They started to call themselves Sir/Ma'am etc all the time. they didn't stop, so it continued into today's speech. For example. English: Mr president! What do you think about your campaign? Polish: Panie prezydencie! Co pan myśli o Paniskiej Kampanii? Translated (literally): Mr president? What do you*Mr think about your*Mr Campain? So that’s…fun. And it’s the reason why the first time alphys calls Gaster „Mr Gaster” and only later switches to „Doctor Gaster”. Because calling someone Mr in polish feels more...respectful? Than calling them doctor. Since the Mr is directly addressing someone as your superior, your elder. and it just makes sense that alphys would make a "Mistake" like this. Another thing about alphys is that she often uses „umm”. In polish, we would more often say „eeee” „Yyyyyy” „Mmmmmm” or just straight up „Emmmm” since that’s just how we speak. In the fourth one, I had some issues because of the scientific language that didn’t translate well. But that’s honestly not that interesting. The fifth one also wasn’t all that interesting in terms of the translations.